Genuinely, I meant every promise I made. But fate was bent on testing every alphabet in my words.

It all started with the withholding of my salary over some friction I had with the secretary. He made some deductions from my salary because I was absent without permission. I explained that I was too ill to send a notification. He said there was no proof of my claims.

I was furious as I stormed out of the office, rejecting the envelope of money. We were not paid through a bank. We always received our salaries in envelopes.

What audacity did a secretary have to touch my pay?

It was because his uncle was the owner of the business and no complain we chanted ever got to his ears without passing through this miserable secretary. Our boss could have intervened. She was there when it all unfolded. But she was mute. The cook told me she and the secretary were secretly dating, although our boss was a married woman and far older than her secretary. No wonder she couldn’t act contrary to his will. She too had been wrapped up in his web, a web she probably enjoyed being victim of.

“You should have taken the money, and refused to sign the sheet.” one female colleague told me later when I explained the incident. She meant the sheet we signed to acknowledge receipt.

The deduction was very little compared to the amount I was due, but ego forbade me from stooping so low to pick the remainder after that ugly secretary dipped his foul fingers into my hard-earned money.

I decided to stay home till I get my money before returning to work. It was during that time that the cook was fired, for no reason. Our boss fabricated a fascinating story to explain the departure of the cook. The innocent were being driven out, and those who forge receipts of groceries were still at their posts.

This was a double blow. My salary was blocked, and my girlfriend was sacked. Damn!

She didn’t have relatives who lived in the city so she had to go back to her little town hundreds of miles away from the capital. I hated long distance relationships and here was one staring me in the face.

Samira told me she was searching for a new job and would return once she got one, but that would be after the Ramadan fast. She didn’t want to start a new job in her fast. She said it drained her physically.

Behind my back, my boss contacted Mrs. Nguessan, the woman who recommended me for the job. Mrs. Nguessan was like a mother to me, and my boss sent her a verbal painting of me in which every colour was a shade of black. My Godmother had a hard time recognizing me in the picture.

It wasn’t long before she called me. We spoke for hours, but the long and short of it was that I was to go back there and at least officially inform them of my departure if I were leaving. Indeed I was, although I knew not what I was going to fall on. A rush decision that was going to be more costly than I estimated.

Rent was waiting for me, light and water bills joined the queue among other bills I was too dizzy with shock to figure out from whence they came.

It was now impossible to honour my pledges to Samira. She had been counting on my words to sort out a couple of problems that suddenly cropped up at her end. And now I had to call to tell her I was sorry. Sorry that the money she had been hoping for wouldn’t come. Sorry that we couldn’t continue dating. I couldn’t say it to her, even on the phone. It was all in a text.

At the height of the pressure, my immaturity seeped through my actions and my words. Samira was a beautiful, honest and hardworking lady. Certainly, ours could have blossomed into a beautiful relationship had I been patient, communicated the situation properly to her, and negotiated for time to honour my promises.

And after receiving my text, she called. To tell me something I shall never forget : “I thought you were different from the rest”.